


Curtain Call

by Symxalia



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Blood, M/M, Self depreciation, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 19:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17269745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Symxalia/pseuds/Symxalia
Summary: Akechi Goro is more affected by the Phantom Thieves of Hearts than he thinks, and that connection changes more than he could ever know.





	Curtain Call

Goro’s not unfamiliar with feeling lonely. He might even have the ground to say that he felt it more often than not, if he were honest with himself. He’s not.

 

So here he is, in Leblanc once again.

 

The warm atmosphere and calm lighting can convince him, even if only just for as long as he stays, that he’s wanted somewhere.

 

Then the bell of Leblanc tolls, he sees the looks of surprise, annoyance, and disdain that flash on Kurusu’s friends faces. Even if Kurusu himself stays eerily impassive. And his fragile blanket of comfort is torn away from him.

 

He let himself get his hopes up again.

 

Pathetic.

 

Goro turns back to his coffee like there isn’t a weight in his chest heavy enough to break bones. His oh so familiar mask sliding back on. The only thing left to give his true feelings away is the quiet creaking of his leather gloves being stretched just a _few_ millimeters too far.

 

Kurusu walks past him. Quiet, unapproachable, and all together nonchalaunt. His friends follow in suit and just like that he’s forgotten. Replaced by cheerful laughter and playful jabs the moment their line of sight leaves him. Unmemorable.

 

Perhaps he’s holding himself too highly.

 

Maybe he never held a place in their minds at all. A buzzing fly that, while annoying in the moment, doesn’t stick around in your memory long enough to have a lasting impact.

 

He brings his cup to his mouth. Cold. Time feels like a thick syrup as he’s dragged back to the present and out of his wandering thoughts. The news drones on, providing background noise just loud enough to block out the city around them, but not enough to masque the sounds of happy teenagers upstairs.

 

Boss tsks, drying one of his coffee cups with too much force. “Those kids don’t know how to keep quiet.”

 

Goro is stunned momentarily as the barrier that weighed down throughout the cafe, keeping him from saying anything, is broken without a second thought. He’s quick to recover however, “They sound happy.” he punctuates the statement with one of his signature closed mouth smiles. Showing that he’s a good, mild-mannered boy. One who isn’t affected by things that may have bothered Sakura’s other patrons.

 

He’s miscalculated though, as Boss’s eyes soften into something like pity. He opens his mouth to say something-

 

“-Thank you for the coffee Sakura-san,” Goro stands, fishing out his wallet and putting down what he owes, “but I really must be going now.”

 

With that, he leaves the cafe.

 

 

* * *

 

Akechi Goro is familiar with loneliness, but he doesn’t experience it on the regular. It’s the truth, he swears.

 

His empty apartment is just a place. The lack of knick-knacks doesn’t bother him. And the ticking of the clock being the only noise other than his breathing doesn’t leave him feeling like the rest of the world has disappeared outside of the bubble of space he currently occupies.

 

The unsatisfying convenience store dinner is fine. Even if it has no flavor when it reaches his taste buds.  

 

The buzzing of his phone only denoting more tv appearances, another case to solve, more dull, boring, monotonous _work_ doesn’t leave him wanting.

 

_Who are you?_

 

He’s Akechi Goro, the charismatic second coming of the detective prince, shido’s _oh so loyal_ metaverse assassin, the Black Mask.

 

_Are you done yet?_

 

No. No, he still hasn’t found any answers.

 

_Why don’t you rest?_

 

Not today.

 

 _Aren’t you_ **_tired?_ **

 

He still has something he needs to do, Shido isn’t dead yet.

 

The voice is nothing new or surprising. It’s as familiar to him as Loki or Robinhood. It asks him these questions every day, to the same reply. He’s used to replying the same way, day after day. Goro sighs, clicking open his attache case.

 

Even the most extraordinary things become ordinary if you repeat them enough.

 

* * *

 

It’s… satisfying. To see the surprise bloom on their faces as he lays out pages and pages of damning evidence against them, to watch as they lose the hope of getting out of this situation with the upperhand.

 

Goro quietly savors their attention on him. In the knowledge that however this turns out, this time, he will not so easily leave their minds.

 

“At the very least, I was almost killed by him.” he watches surprise flit through their expressions and some sort of sick satisfaction fills him at the irony that the his statement wasn’t entirely a lie. Enough so that he lets just a bit more of the truth slip out. “I can’t die here… I need to determine the truth.” A line that truly did ‘save’ his life.

 

And the truth that he wants to reach is so close to his grasp. Just barely brushing against his fingertips.

 

“This guy has a Persona too?” the cat says.

 

The cat… says?

 

“This cat, I swear it just talked?” he can’t help the pure confusion shine through. He wrote off the eighth member of the phantom thieves as some sort of shadow, something that stayed in the metaverse, but the cat before him looks remarkably similar to the cat-like shadow that perplexed him so thoroughly.

 

“Morgana, our friend who taught us about the Metaverse.”

 

They were even lucky enough to have guidance?

 

Bitter jealousy floods his veins, but does not make it to his face.

 

* * *

 

Becoming invested is a detriment to his plans, a road bump on an already icy highway. Soon enough, his vehicle will lose control. And at that point, it will be too late.

So, he’s quick to crush any lingering feelings of warmth or acceptance.

 

Even when Akira meets his eyes and _shines_. Praising him. impressed through and through about his foresight and planning. Leaving him breathless.

 

Especially then.

 

But in the quiet hours after Leblanc’s closing, playing chess together and chatting jovially, Goro allows himself to slip. Just a bit. His words become more animated, tinged with truth, and he learns about Akira and what true friendship can feel like.

 

Friendship.

 

The warmth of the word leaves him wanting _more_ , his heart and soul a black hole that pulls every speck of warmth that’s foolish enough to pass by towards himself, to absorb it and become even hungrier.

 

He can’t help it, when the world outside fades away. When all that’s left is Goro, and Akira.

 

So, when Akira reaches out, brushes his fingers against the back of his hand in a gesture so innocent to any watching but so layered with months of quiet looks and longing, Goro _melts._

 

* * *

 

Goro tries not to think about the date.

 

He tries desperately to forget the steady _tick tock tick tock tick_ in the back of his mind as the end of november draws ever closer.

 

The claws of reality still find time to tear into his skin, however. Leaving him sore, bleeding, and _cold_.

 

* * *

 

It’s done, finished. Kurusu Akira is dead. Goro looked him in his slate grey, dazed, and glassed over eyes and put a gun to his head.  
  
Akira said nothing to him. Was he too stunned by Goro’s betrayal, or too drugged for words? Goro saw the bruises and empty syringes, what exactly did Akira go through in those hours before Goro arrived?  
  
What kind of hell did Goro force him into?  
  
Akira being interrogated so violently was never part of his plan. If he broke and spilled the identities of the other members of the Phantom Thieves, Goro would be a frog in a pot.  
  
Nor did he want this to happen.  
  
He- he didn’t want Akira to suffer.  
  
Goro doesn’t notice he’s crying until he meets his own eyes in the mirror, his hands freshly pink and stinging from scrubbing away non-existent blood. And like a broken floodgate Goro’s face crumples as his breath hitches into a sob. He grips the edge of the sink as he slips to his knees, the strength of his legs failing him. The cool, damp faux-porcelain chilling his cheek while he rests against it.  
  
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You should have never been involved. I’m sorry, Akira. I’m sorry.” his breath comes out in pants as he thinks of going back to Leblanc. Of meeting Sojiro’s eyes after shooting the boy he came to see as a son.  
  
He can’t go back there. Not after this.

 

In one fell swoop Goro got rid of both the one place he could truly feel at ease in, and the one person in the world that could have saved him.  
  
It could have been minutes or hours that passed before Goro pulled himself together enough to cross the meager distance across his apartment and collapse on his futon.

* * *

  
Akira’s alive.  
  
Akira is alive!  
  
Seeing him and the other thieves in Shido’s palace during a routine trip to collect information from the parasites that linger there was such a shock that Goro has to force himself to not burst from the shadows to demand answers. To ask him how. How could he have known, how was he ready, how is he not dead?  
  
His mental questioning falls to the wayside as their voices echo on the metal walls.  
  
“Man, that guy at the pool was a serious creep though, he can go choke for all I care” Ann says, shivering.

 

“Even thinking about contracting to make art for that disgusting man leaves me devoid of all passion.”  
  
“Don’t get me started on the TV guy. if we weren’t gonna change Shido’s heart already I would have said ‘let’s do it’ just from guilt by association!”  
  
“Association? I didn’t know you knew such big words, Skull”  
  
“Shut up cat.”  
  
“I’m not a cat!”  
  
Goro chooses the next moment to hop out of the rafters where he had nestled in and hidden himself. The moment he hits the ground a sense of finality washes over him.

 

“Long time no see”

 

“ _Akechi_!” Skull is the first to react. He steps in front of Akira, protecting him.

 

The rest of the thieves follow in suit, taking up battle stances. It doesn’t hurt, shouldn’t hurt. He’s not their ally, he made that clear when he tried to take their leader’s life. Though, seeing as Akira’s still alive, they saw Goro as their enemy much sooner than he thought.

“Hmph, I’m impressed to see you managed to deceive me, it seems I underestimated your skills.” he meets Joker’s gaze head on.

 

He’s determined to make this final showing his best.

 

“You truly are quite interesting… Quiet, yet possessing the courage and charm to move others to take action.”

 

“Under different circumstances we could have been great rivals, perhaps even friends.” the note of sorrow that slips from under his crumbling mask goes to show how poor he has become at acting in the past weeks.

 

He doubles down.

 

“It’s not too late, Goro” Akira pleads, and Goro’s eye twitches at the use of his first name, after everything.

 

A quiet, slightly hysterical laughter wracks through Goro. “how wonderful!”

 

“You don’t allow yourself to be enslaved by morality or the past, even after all that I’ve done to you and your friends.”

 

“You are truly free. I’ll be honest, I’m a bit envious”

 

“I wonder why we couldn’t have met a few years earlier, Akira”

 

Akira’s eyes alight with… understanding?

 

For some reason, despite the circumstances, Goro feels _better_ after telling the truth.

 

“Akechi…” Panther’s pity breaks him out of his stupor.

 

“But, there’s no use in talking of hypotheticals. That’s not what happened in reality.”

 

“Akechi, why are you working for someone like Shido!?” Queen digs for information, just as blunt as always, “don’t you see what this palace looks like? His true natu-”

 

“Is someone who would push an old fling of his to suicide,” he sneers, “I’m aware.”

 

“I am not _co-operating_ with him” the malice in his voice is palpable, “I’m raising that bastard up so I can push him from the peaks of glory and then _crush him beneath my boots_.”

 

“Thats…” Oracle gasps, rendered speechless.

 

“Horrible? Were you going to tell me about how much of a deplorable human being I am?” He digs in, tightening his grip on his mask, “I guess it would be fitting, I am my father’s son, afterall.”

 

A heavy silence falls over the group in front of him, broken only by fox.

 

“Shido is your father?”

 

“I’m his bastard child. My very existence is nothing but a scandal.” His voice drops it’s pitch. “One that he couldn’t let run around unchecked.”

 

“Akechi…” Panther moves to, what? Step forward? Comfort him? She must think better of it, because the action is aborted quickly.

 

“I resented him and his control over me, but he was already a high ranking official by the time he was alerted to my existence. A kid like me could do nothing.”

 

“But… that’s when it happened.” the memory graces him with a surge of giddiness, just like the day it happened.

 

“That’s when I learned about the cognitive world!” traces of hysterical laughter bubble up his throat. “And just like that I was given exactly what I wanted.”

 

“By the power of a god or demon I was given the power I _needed_ to exact my revenge. In that moment, I couldn’t contain my laughter!”

 

“You son of a…!” Skull exclaims, and the rest of the thieves tense.

 

Their synchronicity strikes Goro as likened to a hive mind.

 

“Who cares? My targets were worse than I am. I was doing the world a _favor_ ”

 

“I won’t take you calling my father’s death a _favor_ to the world!”

 

“So _what!_ Shido is finally within my grasp! I won’t let you ruin my plans _weeks_ from their fruition.”

 

“What a warped thought, it’s almost pitiable.” Fox mumbles, clear to all in the silence of the engine room.

 

“I can still fix this though. I just need to get rid of you, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.”

 

“If you think you can beat us alone, you must be stupider than I thought!” Mona declares.

 

Goro _hates_ that damned cat.

 

“You talk big, but you’re really just a little kid throwing a temper tantrum.”

 

“Don’t lecture me on being _childish_ you piece of shit! I’m going to personally thrust Masayoshi Shido into a living _hell_.”

 

He turns to meet Akira’s eyes, “So Joker, rest easy and die.”

 

“I don’t plan on letting _anyone_ die today.”

 

“I find it hilarious that you think you have any choice in the matter.” he lets a fraction of his power go, the fluctuations summon two shadows to his side.

 

“What? How’d he do that?” Skull exclaims.

 

“His power levels are off the charts, is this what he was keeping from us?”

 

“If he truly is behind the mental shutdowns, then what we’ve seen is only a fraction of his power.”

 

“Hahaha… I’ll show you my true power, just try to survive to see the end.”

 

“But first, I’ll give you a sneak peak.” he grins, “you know, the mental shutdowns weren’t the only cases to be causing a stir as of late. No, another crime has been plaguing tokyo. The psychotic breakdowns.”

 

“Those cannot be explained unless the culprit has the ability to turn the victim's hearts psychotic.” He watches the thieves faces twist into horor, “that’s right, _my_ power. One you don’t have!”

 

* * *

 

“I truely am too _weak_ to beat even _you”_ Goro seathes, his breath heaving as he wraps around himself, barely standing. “What makes us so different? Why are you so much more _special_ than me?”

 

“Dude you’re more than special! You’re incredible!”

 

“I hate to admit it, but you’re stronger than any one of us,” Queen posits, then, her face turns darker, sadder. “Alone, none of us could beat you, we only won because we’re together.”

 

Panther speaks up next, “I understand now why you did what you did, and you would make a powerful ally.”

 

Goro looks up, shocked, “... even after all this?” his eyes ache with a familiar feeling and he sucks in a deep breath before promptly releasing it with a wheeze as his ribs throb in protest.

 

Fox nods. “You remind me of what I could have become, if the phantom thieves hadn’t shown me the errors in my thinking.”

 

“I can’t forgive you, but I sympathise with you.” _Okumura_ says, leaving Goro to blink in confusion.

 

“Well, if it isn’t the rats that have been making a mess.” the sudden voice draws Goro’s eyes away from the cast of colorful teenagers, only to watch… himself? Walk out of the shadows.

 

“What?”

 

“A second Akechi?”

 

There may well be more astonished responses to his double’s appearance, but Goro’s eyes are stuck on his counterparts. They look _dead_ . Then the clone turns and their eyes meet. The _thing_ smirks, the expression twisting his face into something unrecognizable.

 

“Oh, it’s you, how convenient.” it takes a step forward and reaches into _his_ coat, he tenses, ready for a fight. “A message from the captain; he has no need for losers.”

 

“That’s alright though, I can save him the trouble of disposing you by just taking care of it _here”_

 

There’s a spattering of gasps as his double pulls out a gun and aims it directly at his head. The click of the safety echoing through the hall.

 

“However, if you proved yourself right here, right now, there would be no need.” it gestures to the thieves, “kill them”

 

Goro pulls out his gun, aiming right between Akira’s eyes.

 

The view is familiar.

 

He trembles.

 

“What, are you hesitating?” a pause, “don’t tell me, you think they actually care about you? You’re just a tool to be used and discarded.”

 

“I know” his voice is weak.

 

“Even your own _father_ has plans to kill you. There is no room in _his_ country for a murderer after all.”

 

“I _know”_

 

“But you still keep crawling back to dear old dad, hoping for love, for his approval. You’re pathetic”  
  
“I _KNOW”_ Goro yells, his arm lifting up, up, and pulling the trigger rapid fire, first, into the copy’s chest, then to activate the emergency lock system.

 

The dog shadows all snarl, poised to jump, and Goro is too focused on them to notice the door slamming closed before the bottom panel had clipped him, sending him sprawling on the ground.

 

“Hurry! Get out of here!” the pain of movement strains his voice.

 

He leans against the door, feeling every thud of the thieves pounding on it.

 

His gun arm stays true.

 

“Why now? Are you trying to die?”

 

Even as he feels the curtains begin to pull closed.

 

“Akechi!”

 

He knows this is the end of his part in the story, and there will be no calls for an encore. But he also knows that the show must go on, with or without him.

 

He’ll make his last moments count.

 

“Joker, lets make a deal,” his eyes don’t leave the monster in front of him. The perfect copy. “You wont say no will you?”

 

“No matter what, change shido’s heart in my stead. End is crimes” there’s silence on the other side of the partition wall, the dogs take a step forward. His cognition’s wounds rapidly fade from his sight.

 

“ _Please!”_

 

“I promise.” Akira’s voice slips through the wall.

 

His vision clouds as tears begin to pour down his face. “ _Thank you_ ”

 

He takes a deep breath.

 

_Who are you?_

 

 

He's... not sure.

 

_Are you finished?_

 

Yes, it’s over now.

 

His cognition raises it’s arm, taking aim, tensing. Goro’s heart speeds up, something nestled next to it flutters in time, taking shape, solidifying.

 

 _Who am I?_  

 

The voices deviation from the script is the last thing on Goro's mind. His finger tightens around the trigger and then-


End file.
